Our most dynamic vehicle warfare ever
We are making sure vehicle warfare in Battlefield 3 is even more dynamic than before. That’s why we are introducing two new tactical gameplay concepts affecting how vehicle damage and repairs are handled.

Imagine that your tank is hit by an RPG in Battlefield 3. As the first warnings go off, this is your time as Commander of the tank to assess the danger of the situation – do you push on towards your goal regardless, or do you abort and take evasive action? If you back up and take cover, you give yourself a chance to let the vehicle armor recover, just like your soldier heals up when going into cover.

This is a new feature in Battlefield 3 where lightly damaged vehicles recover their armor after a set amount of time (if kept away from enemy fire). Instead of promoting a gung-ho attitude at all times, this means that the driver who keeps his cool and adapts to any given situation will also be able to keep his vehicle in working order for longer. It is basically our way of giving smart non-Engineers a fighting chance to keep his vehicle in the battle.

Past a certain damage threshold, vehicles will not recover armor. And with heavy damage comes the horrifying and adrenaline-inducing experience of having one’s vehicle disabled. In the case of the tank, it would slow to a crawl. Fire and smoke would signal that it is in dire need of manual repairs, and that it is only a matter of time before it explodes. But here’s the beauty of the new system: Its weapons will still be functioning, turning this into a high risk situation that can play out in a number of ways.

Patrick “Posh” O’Shaughnessy is Lead Vehicle Designer on Battlefield 3:
— Battlefield 2 was the first game I worked on at DICE as a designer, so finally building the vehicles for the sequel is very exciting! I think the ability to kit out your favorite vehicle depending on the situation combined with the new dynamics we’ve added to vehicle damage and repairs makes for a lot of interesting choices for players.

In our daily playtests here at DICE, you will often find a disabled tank in the field with Engineers scrambling to repair it, while its crew is still operating the main cannon and auxiliary machine gun to keep enemy forces at bay. If repairs go well, the tank gets back to full working order and the crew has narrowly escaped a disaster. If not, at least they had a fighting chance, while the disabled vehicle itself made a tempting target leading to more intense multiplayer action.